Ronald Pofalla (born 15 May 1959) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as the

Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supportin ...

of the

German Chancellery The Federal Chancellery (, ) is a Germany, German Federal agency (Germany), federal agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the Government of Germany, federal government, currently Friedrich Merz. The Chancel ...

and a Federal Minister for Special Affairs from 2009 to 2013, in the

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

. From 2017 to 2022, he was the CEO of the infrastructure department of

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

Early life and education

Pofalla studied social pedagogy at the

Fachhochschule A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...

Kleve Kleve (; traditional ; ; ; ; ; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Netherlands, Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county and lat ...

. After finishing with a

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from ) is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

in 1981 he studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

. In 1991 he passed the second Staatsexamen. Since that time Pofalla has been licensed to work as a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

Political career

Early beginnings

Pofalla has been a member of the CDU since 1975. At first he was engaged in the Junge Union. He was chairman of the JU in the State of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

from 1986 to 1992.

Member of the German Parliament, 1990–2014

During his time in parliament, Pofalla served on the Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and the Rules of Procedure, the Committee on Legal Affairs, the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and the Committee on Economic Affairs and Technology. From 2004 to 2005 Pofalla was deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group in the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

under the leadership of Angela Merkel, and served as the

Secretary General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

of the CDU from 2005 to 2009. In the negotiations to form a

of the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2009 federal elections, he led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on labour and social affairs; his counterpart of the FDP was Dirk Niebel.

Chief of Staff to the Chancellor, 2009–2013

After the elections, Pofalla succeeded Thomas de Maizière as Chief of Staff to Chancellor Angela Merkel. During his time in office, he was repeatedly criticized for being rude towards other representatives of the Bundestag and other members of the German government. In September 2011 he seriously insulted Wolfgang Bosbach, senior group leader of the CDU/ CSU-group in the Bundestag after an in-house discussion about the enhancement of the European Financial Stability Facility. In the negotiations to form a

following the 2013 federal elections, Pofalla was part of the 15-member leadership circle chaired by Merkel,

Horst Seehofer Horst Lorenz Seehofer (born 4 July 1949) is a German politician who served as Minister for the Interior, Building and Community under Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2018 to 2021. A member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), he served as the ...

and Sigmar Gabriel. As part of a cabinet reshuffle, he subsequently resigned as head of the Federal Chancellery.

Career in the private sector

In January 2014 it was reported that Pofalla would be joining the management of

, the state-owned national rail network of Germany. He had previously worked for the company's subsidiary

DB Netz DB Netz () was a major subsidiary of that owned and operated a majority of the German railway system. It was one of the largest railway infrastructure managers by length (33,291 km as of 2019) and transport volume of its network. On 1 Janu ...

between 2005 and 2009. At Deutsche Bahn, Pofalla took up a "specially created lobbying post" said to carry compensation of more than a million euros a year. His successor in the Bundestag is Thorsten Hoffmann. After transitioning to the private sector, Pofalla was made co-chairman of the Petersburg Dialogue, a semiofficial German-Russian symposium. From 2018 until 2019, he also served on the German government's so-called coal commission, which was tasked to develop a masterplan before the end of the year on how to phase-out coal and create a new economic perspective for the country's coal-mining regions. In 2022, Pofalla was appointed to the managing board of real estate developer Gröner Group. In April 2023, Pofalla was one of the 22 personal guests at the ceremony in which Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician who has served as President of Germany since 2017. He was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), federal minister for foreign affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again f ...

at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.

Other activities

Corporate boards

* DEVK Rückversicherungs- und Beteiligungs-Aktiengesellschaft, Member of the supervisory board (since 2016) * Sparda-Bank, Member of the Advisory Board * KfW, Member of the supervisory board (2002-2006)

Non-profit organizations

* Bonner Akademie für Forschung und Lehre praktischer Politik (BAPP), Member of the Board of Trustees * Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2018) * Jewish Museum Berlin, Member of the Board of Trustees * German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), vice-president of the council (2009-2013) * Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Member of the Presidium (2009-2013) *

Konrad Adenauer Foundation The Konrad Adenauer Foundation ('' German: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.; Abbreviation: KAS'') is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The foundation's head ...

, Member of the Board (2005-2009) *

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

, Member of the Television Board (2005-2009)

Political positions

During his time in politics, Pofalla took an active interest in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. In 2012, he publicly condemned the execution of Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, both 26, saying this move would further alienate Belarus from Europe. " Lukashenko thus drifts even further away from our European values," he said. "The already heavily burdened relation between Belarus and Europe will be rendered yet more difficult by this." In the context of the Ukraine crisis, Pofalla has commented that "it wasn’t clever of Barack Obama to have downgraded Russia, in connection with the Ukraine conflict, to the level of a regional power."

Controversy

Pofalla caused controversy when German tabloid ''

Bild ''Bild'' (, ) or ''Bild-Zeitung'' (, ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' () is published instead, which has a differen ...

'' revealed that he had bought premium Montblanc writing materials worth 3,307.61 euros for his MP office at the expense of the

in 2009; at the time, it was the highest recorded order by any parliamentarian.Kate Brady (25 August 2016)
German MPs expenses to be reconsidered following stationery scandal
''

Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...

''.

References

External links

Ronald Pofalla's website
*

Sustainable Development Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...